Stacy Garrop, Keynote Composer (Chicago, IL)
Dr. Stacy Garrop is an award-winning, internationally recognized freelance composer and lecturer whose music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. Her catalog covers a wide range of genres, with works for orchestra, opera, oratorio, wind ensemble, choir, art song, and various sized chamber ensembles. Dr. Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Music Foundation Grant, Barlow Prize, and three Barlow Endowment commissions. Notable commissions include Forging Steel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, The Battle for the Ballot for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Goddess Triptych for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Berko’s Journey for the Omaha Symphony, Forged by the Sea for the U.S. Navy Band, The Transformation of Jane Doe for Chicago Opera Theater, In a House Besieged for The Crossing, Give Me Hunger for Chanticleer, Glorious Mahalia for the Kronos Quartet, Rites for the Afterlife for the Akropolis and Calefax Reed Quintets, and My Dearest Ruth for voice and piano with text by the husband of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Dr. Garrop has served as the featured composer of the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival and the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, as well as a mentor composer for the Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, LunART Festival Composers Hub, and Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition. She was the inaugural Emerging Opera Composer for Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Program (2018-2020), and Composer-in-Residence with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, funded by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras (2016-2019).
Theodore Presser Company publishes her works. Her music is frequently recorded by Cedille Records, with works commercially available on several additional labels. For more information, please visit her website at www.garrop.com
andPlay (Brooklyn, NY/Bowling Green, OH)
andPlay is committed to expanding the existing violin/viola duo repertoire by commissioning new works and actively collaborating with living artists. The New York City-based duo of Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola, first played to an eager crowd on Fire Island in the summer of 2012 and has since commissioned over forty-five works. Collaboration is an integral part of andPlay’s artistic process; the ensemble has worked closely with composers including Carolyn Chen, Andrew McIntosh, Mariel Roberts, Lester St. Louis, and Zeynep Toraman. andPlay’s 2024-25 season includes performances in New York City, Detroit, Toledo (OH), Otterbein University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Northern Illinois University, College of the Ozarks, and Ohio State University. This season also features new works by Angharad Davies and Magnus Granberg which will be premiered as part of a European tour in Summer 2025. In a commitment to accessibility, andPlay continues to use livestream and virtual tools as additional ways to connect with audiences across the world.
Recent highlights include a five-city tour in Sweden, appearances on the Frequency Festival (Chicago), the Twin Cities New Music Festival (St. Paul) and Re:Sound Festival (Cleveland), and a recording residency at EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, NY). The duo has also performed at venues including the Center for New Music (San Francisco), Scandinavia House (New York), Roulette (New York), Monk Space (Los Angeles), Short North Stage (Columbus), and the Toledo Museum of Art. andPlay is the recipient of two Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning grants, most recently in 2022 with composer Julie Herndon. andPlay is also supported by granting organizations including New York Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, the Amphion Foundation, and New Music USA.
Maya and Hannah met while studying at Oberlin Conservatory and continued their educations at New York University and the Manhattan School of Music.
Michael Hall (Chicago, IL)
Michael Hall lives in Chicago and has performed and taught across Europe, Asia and the United States. Described by the New Music Connoisseur as “utterly masterful,” and Chamber Music Today as having “superb technique,” he recently made his Chicago Orchestra Hall solo debut performing the world premiere of Kim Diehnelt’s “Montegar,” and concluded a recital tour to Vienna, Austria and Udine and Tolmezzo, Italy. Hall has been a featured performer at the Thailand International Composition Festival in Bangkok, the Positano Chamber Music Festival in Italy, the Vianden International Chamber Music Festival in Luxembourg and the Composer’s Concordance Series in New York City. January 2018, Hall gave the world premiere of Stacy Garrop’s Viola Concerto - “Krakatoa,” with the Bandung Philharmonic in Indonesia.
Twice he has presented world premieres at International Viola Congresses at Minneapolis and Reykjavik, Iceland, performed at the 2014 Primrose International Festival in Los Angeles, been a five-time featured performer at the UMKC Summer Composition Workshop, and presented to critical acclaim the North American premiere of Chen Yi’s, Xian Shi, the first viola concerto written by a Chinese composer, with the Chicago Composers Orchestra, and earlier with the Chiang Mai Philharmonic in Thailand.
Neonautica (New Orleans, LA)
Neonautica is a New Orleans-based voice/sax duo renowned for their work in EDM, avant-pop, and experimental classical music—as well as their unique collisions of those styles. Since 2017 singer/songwriter Megan Ihnen and saxophonist/composer/producer Alan Theisen have performed across the United States, combining live vocals and saxophone with electronic beats to create one-of-a-kind genre-bending shows.
Neonautica’s original music fuses dubstep, psychedelic funk, drum and bass, art rock, and emotional orchestral sounds into tracks that melt minds and shake behinds. What do they sound like? Imagine GRiZ, Björk, and Meredith Monk all jamming together in a sparkly sci-fi fever dream.
For almost a decade, Neonautica has also collaborated with composers of contemporary classical music, specializing in pieces with theatrical elements. Their touring stage production Black Meridian is a nonstop, hour-long, two-person opera telling a story of love and black holes through music by ten different composers/songwriters.
The duo (formerly known as MIATp) has performed at numerous festivals and venues including Oh My Ears Festival (Phoenix), NEXTET (Las Vegas), Soulful Sessions (Peacock Room - New Orleans), Zeitgeist Halloween Festival (St. Paul), UT Contemporary Music Festival (Knoxville), and more. Neonautica has joined forces with numerous musicians and artists such as composer/producer Andrew Rodriguez (PASTPREY), singer/actress Gelsey Bell (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), composer Jennifer Bellor, performer/video artist Nick Zoulek (Rushing Past Willow), composer Neil Anderson-Himmelspach, and saxophonist Scott Johnson (Delfeayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra). Neonautica is a partnered ensemble with ADJective Composers’ Collective as well as a fiscally sponsored project of Bang on a Can.
“NEONAUTICA’S... SOUND LIVES SOMEWHERE BETWEEN EDM, ORCHESTRAL MUSIC, FUNK, CINEMATIC POP, AND JOYFUL CHAOS. WHAT BEGAN NEARLY A DECADE AGO AS A CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL VOICE-AND-SAX PROJECT HAS EVOLVED INTO A BOUNDARY-PUSHING LIVE ACT THAT EMBRACES UNPREDICTABILITY, HUMOR, AND EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING ON THE DANCEFLOOR.”
— AYANNA LOVELADY, NOLA EDM
Shi-An Costello (Chicago, IL)
Described as “…a tour de force…” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), pianist Shi-An Costello has trailblazed a path truly unique, with repertoire that spans the aesthetic sensibilities of four centuries, from J.S. Bach to Franz Schubert, from Chopin to Brian Ferneyhough, to include "speaking pianist" repertoire, and the most current of musical styles. Costello currently works as a session pianist for IFC Films and IMAX Films, and is staff pianist at DePaul University School of Music and Musical Pathways Initiative of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Shi-An has performed with members of Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Toronto, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Winnipeg, Honolulu, and Thunder Bay Symphonies, the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, and new music groups Fulcrum Point, Dal Niente and Sound Icon. In his youth, Costello was a piano and theory student under Vladimir Leyetchkiss, one of the last pupils of Heinrich Neuhaus, and a trombone student under Richard Schmitt, former principal of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of McGill University and Columbia College, and former faculty of Boston Conservatory at Berklee and New Music School, Costello currently teaches an audition-based private studio in Chicago.
Tower Duo (Columbus, OH)
Based in Columbus, Ohio, the contemporary music flute and saxophone duet, Tower Duo (flutist, Erin Helgeson Torres and saxophonist, Michael Rene Torres,) has been performing together since 2007 and focuses on the music of living composers. Tower Duo's performances are innovative and narrative driven and often explore improvisation, multimedia, and collaboration with other arts. The Duo has since performed in Canada, Cuba, Spain, and all across the United States at schools, conferences, arts venues, and festivals, including artist residencies at several universities (30+). Highlights include the 15th Bienal de la Habana international art festival, Omaha Chamber Music Society’s Eko Nova series, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound New Music Festival, the ComProv Symposium, the Brevard Music Center Festival and Institute, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, the Society of Composers, Inc. conferences, North American Saxophone Alliance conferences, as well as guests artist appearances during the contemporary music festivals of Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Ball State University, and Capital University.
Tower Duo recently recorded their debut album, Crosswind, which features the Duo’s favorite collaborations with composers from the first decade of their artistic work. Crosswind was released by Ravello Records under the PARMA Recordings label in January of 2019. In April 2024, Tower Duo premiered the concerto, “Mountains upon Mountains Like Waves Upon Waves” for Flute, Saxophone, and Orchestra by award winning composer, Evan Williams, as soloists with the Lima Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew Kennedy, Artistic Director (Tiffin, OH)
The music of composer Matthew Kennedy (b. 1987) contains disarming simplicity, often seeking out dark places with an uninhibited wonder and spirit of exploration. His work has been performed on five continents and received critical acclaim including honors and commissions from ASCAP, BMI, Opera on Tap, College Music Society, Boston Musica Viva, World Saxophone Congress, Hartford Opera Theater, bassist Robert Black, Dynamic Music Festival at NYU, as well as residencies at Marble House Project (VT), Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), Hambidge Center (GA), Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology (MI), and the Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities (CT). Recent activities include performances and lectures at Bowling Green New Music Festival, New Music Gathering at Boston Conservatory, Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, Duke University, New Music on the Bayou, Aspen Composers’ Conference, University of Virginia, Constantinides New Music Ensemble (LSU), Florida Flute Association, Northwestern University New Music Conference, and the North American Saxophone Alliance International Conference.
His works are published through Murphy Music Press, Just a Theory Press, NewMusicShelf, Parma Recordings, Soundset Recordings, and Ink & Coda Journal. Matthew holds degrees from The Hartt School (DMA), Butler University (MM), and Anderson University (BA), where his primary teachers included Michael Schelle, Robert Carl, Larry Alan Smith, Elizabeth Brown, and Manuel Sosa. Matthew, a native of rural Indiana, currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Heidelberg University, having previously taught at University of South Florida and The Hartt School. He resides in Tiffin, Ohio with his wife, studio artist Erin Kennedy, and four children. You can find out more about the Music of Matthew Kennedy at www.kennedycomposer.com
Student Organizers
Cameron Gaietto
BA in Political Science and Music
Sarah Jewell
BM in Music Education